Atheists/Agnostics: How Much Sense Does God Make?

[quatona]

dp, sorry!

 

[quatona]

According to your understanding of God are you a theist in your own eyes?

I don´t believe in Gods and I don´t have an "understanding of God", to begin with. I was asked to define the word "God" in the way it makes most sense to me (i.e. the way I could meaningfully use it).
If, in your thinking and terminology, fantasies/projections/concepts/ideas of people means that the subjects of those fantasies etc. necessarily "exist", feel free to call me a "theist". Personally, and in view of the way most people use this word, I find that a tad misleading, though.

 

[quatona]

And I'd really ask those who have contributed to the discussion but haven't voted to try a vote, and if you "can't" let me know why.

I did vote, even though I had problems to decide whether to vote as an atheist or an agnostic.

 

[quatona]

That's a psychological description, not an attempted definition of a concept or idea.

Yes, right. But what to do when you don´t hold a concept that you label "God"? Just make something up?
Defining the subject of your belief is your business, not mine.

So some people would say the things Eudaimonist said: God is timeless, spaceless, transcendent, etc. Do those attempted qualities which constitute a partial definition fail because they're inconceivable or wrong, or because there aren't enough qualities to make up a good enough definition?

Again: I don´t know why Mark - as a non-believer - defines "God" for you. I certainly won´t. If you´d ask me for the god concept of a particular denomination, I think I could try to summarize it, though.
As for the other question (criticism of the above presented definition):
Just like Mark, I find purely ex negativo definitions pretty much useless. And, yes, in a way I think that words like "timeless" or "spaceless" do not represent concepts.

 

[variant]

As in, it's hubris to think the universe was created for us, therefore God is off the table?

No, God is free to exist or not exist. What I am saying is that It is unlikely that a human viewpoint (what makes sense to us) will do it much justice if it exists. If it doesn't exist our ideas about God are practical nonsense.

I would reword sentence two to read:

God as an objective or independent thing (conforming to our viewpoints) is nonsense, as I see no reason the universe should or does conform to our viewpoint.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I'm afraid that even this is an expression of ideology and worldview. As Zizek says, as soon as we think we've escaped ideology it's precisely then that we're within ideology.

There is no such thing as "analyzing the facts objectively".

That being the case, how are you able to justify the confidence you have in your own ideology or worldview?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

An ideology that places that kind of confidence in the autonomy of human thinking. Some of the assumptions going into this is that it's possible to understand reality in an objective sense and that the human mind has powers of understanding that overcome personal goals, commitments, pre existing beliefs, and interpretations.

It's the basic scientific, naturalistic ideology that's characteristic of post enlightenment thinking. It has its own set of presuppositions and values just like Christian ideology.

That isn't accurate. Far from placing unwarranted confidence in the supremacy of the human mind and its ability to conquer and subdue reality, we recognise its many shortcomings, including its propensity for bias and making erroneous inferences. The scientific endeavor represents our best attempt to overcome these shortcomings. In the words of Jacob Bronowksi, "Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible."

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Man is capable of understanding the world in such a way that he can cultivate it and use it for human wellbeing. He can learn how to live in the world.

But this is far from understanding the world in an objective sense, free from all ideology.

This strikes me as all-or-none thinking. Why must our understanding be free from all ideology* in order to qualify as objective? That is an impossible standard to achieve. We can never guarantee that any understanding is totally free of ideology; we can therefore never satisfactorily call any understanding 'objective' even if it can be demonstrated that it is less tainted by ideology when compared to a different understanding. This essentially boils down to saying "That's just your opinion, man."

*Here I take 'ideology' to simply mean bias of any kind.

 

[Tree of Life]

This strikes me as all-or-none thinking. Why must our understanding be free from all ideology* in order to qualify as objective? That is an impossible standard to achieve. We can never guarantee that any understanding is totally free of ideology; we can therefore never satisfactorily call any understanding 'objective' even if it can be demonstrated that it is less tainted by ideology when compared to a different understanding. This essentially boils down to saying "That's just your opinion, man."

*Here I take 'ideology' to simply mean bias of any kind.

I agree with this. You can see in some of my previous posts where I distinguish between relative and ultimate objectivity. We can achieve relative objectivity but not ultimate objectivity.

 

[Tree of Life]

That being the case, how are you able to justify the confidence you have in your own ideology or worldview?

My ideology being theistic finds its confidence in God. Anything I know, I know because God has revealed it to me. I don't know it because of autonomous powers of my own, but because of God. My knowledge totally depends upon him. So I only have confidence in my own ideology to the extent that I have confidence in God. Somewhat circular, but you'll find the same circularity in every epistemology.

 

[Tree of Life]

That isn't accurate. Far from placing unwarranted confidence in the supremacy of the human mind and its ability to conquer and subdue reality, we recognise its many shortcomings, including its propensity for bias and making erroneous inferences. The scientific endeavor represents our best attempt to overcome these shortcomings. In the words of Jacob Bronowksi, "Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible."

But even this is an amazing confidence in the human mind. The human mind is powerful enough to recognize and overcome its own shortcomings!

 

[bhsmte]

My ideology being theistic finds its confidence in God. Anything I know, I know because God has revealed it to me. I don't know it because of autonomous powers of my own, but because of God. My knowledge totally depends upon him. So I only have confidence in my own ideology to the extent that I have confidence in God. Somewhat circular, but you'll find the same circularity in every epistemology.

If your confidence in how you perceive God is what you rely on, it is indeed circular and flawed based on your own opinion of how everyone is bias.

And, sorry, science which relies on empirical evidence, does not even approach the circularity of faith beliefs.

 

[bhsmte]

But even this is an amazing confidence in the human mind. The human mind is powerful enough to recognize and overcome its own shortcomings!

You just contradicted everything you said in this thread about humans not being capable of being objective. I have noticed you have contradicted yourself on many times in the past and the trend continues.

 

[Tree of Life]

You just contradicted everything you said in this thread about humans not being capable of being objective. I have noticed you have contradicted yourself on many times in the past and the trend continues.

You misunderstood my post. I was not affirming that statement but pointing out the statement that Archaeopteryx was making. I am now going to stop responding to your posts because they're too inflammatory for me. See ya!

 

[bhsmte]

You misunderstood my post. I was not affirming that statement but pointing out the statement that Archaeopteryx was making. I am now going to stop responding to your posts because they're too inflammatory for me. See ya!

Pointing out contradictions in one's statements is not inflammatory. It is out there for all to see.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

But even this is an amazing confidence in the human mind. The human mind is powerful enough to recognize and overcome its own shortcomings!

No, you misunderstand. If you accept the premise that human thinking is fallible, then you recognise that our ability to overcome these shortcomings is likewise fallible. No one is suggesting that the human mind is powerful enough to recognise and overcome all of its shortcomings perfectly.

 

[Received]

Bump

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

How much sense does God make to you?

'God' as an anthropomorphized imagination makes perfect sense to me.

It explains precisely why if you're a tree-hugging, war-protesting, hippy Quaker who wants everyone to hold hands, eat organic zucchini salad and sing Kumbaya, so is god.

Or if you're a bloodthirsty, abysmally ignorant, murdering, raping, misogynist psychopath who thinks women should be burned with acid for learning how to read and infidels should be beheaded, what a coincidence... so is god.

These things are only problematic if you think 'god' actually exists in any meaningful manner. He's either terrible at communicating with his creation or doesn't care to, and in either case is unworthy of worship (why 'gods' purportedly require worship in the first place is a whole different matter).

So an imaginary god does make sense to me, as it requires no further explanation for the state of reality. An actual, existing god makes zero sense, which is part of the reason I don't believe in any.

 

[Received]

So you don't think people learn about God, whether or not he exists, by authority. Or that if they do, the authorities (other people) merely project themselves onto God, and these projections become godlike and acceptable to groups of people?

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

So you don't think people learn about God, whether or not he exists, by authority. Or that if they do, the authorities (other people) merely project themselves onto God, and these projections become godlike and acceptable to groups of people?

To an extent, yes. Not always on purpose but just by the human nature in the same way we pass other knowledge through generations.

All the above meant respectfully.